Villagers in capital to protest development
Representatives from five communes in Koh Kong province are scheduled to hold a press conference in the capital today, appealing for government intervention in a land dispute with a Chinese development company that has spanned nearly four years. Lov Hov, a representative from Thmar Sar commune, in Botum Sakor district, told the Post yesterday villagers were staging the conference to draw attention to their plight with the Union Development Company, which was granted a 36,000-hectare economic land concession in April, 2008 to build a US$5 billion mega-tourism zone in Botum Sakor and Kiri Sakor districts. The concession Union Development received breaches Cambodian land law, which limits government land concessions to private companies to 10,000 hectares. Last August, the company was granted an additional 9,100 hectares in the protected Botum Sakor national park to build a hydropower dam. …
